A Chicago native who had never experienced segregation in public accommodations before moving to the South, Diane Nash first attended workshops on nonviolence as a student at Nashville's Fisk University. Along with John Lewis, she formed the Nashville Student Movement, which aimed to desegregate the city's lunch counters. Nash organized the sit-ins that began there in 1960, eliciting a televised admission from Mayor Ben West that segregation was wrong. Nash participated in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and picked the group of students from Nashville who joined the 1961 Freedom Riders. Nash later became active in the antiwar movement.